Sustainable Ag News: Seedstock’s Weekly Roundup

Excerpt: New ‘Young Farmers NY’ providing incentives for farmers starting out or hanging on in St. Lawrence County and around the state.

Parts of the program launched include more than $600,000 in grants and a loan forgiveness program, both aimed at helping young farmers overcome obstacles to give them a greater chance of a successful career in agriculture.

Excerpt: “By introducing engineers and technologists, people that have worked at consumer design brands, and bringing that experience and worldview, we can make farming and food tech and ag tech sexy. Once [that] appears, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. [There will] be more engineers,” said Gabe Blanchet, co-founder and CEO of Grove Labs, which has created a home aquaponics system the size of a bookshelf that has sensors and software to automatically update people of their crops’ health and send the information to their smartphones.

Excerpt: Encinitas will continue to move forward with plans to make it easier to farm, raise bees or keep chickens in residential areas, the City Council agreed Wednesday, but several council members said there may be some significant unintended consequences.

“(Urban farming) sounds really good, unless it’s next to you and that’s the hang-up I have,” Councilman Mark Muir said as he described his concerns with the proposed changes.

Excerpt: Whole Foods Market on Wednesday began a ratings program for fruits, vegetables and flowers aimed at giving consumers more information about pesticide and water use, the treatment of farm workers and waste management, and other issues surrounding the food they eat.

Excerpt: Panasonic has licensed its first vertical indoor vegetable farm, a sustainable and economical indoor farming technology that can produce a wide range of seasonal crops using soil-based cultivation in controlled environments and Hydroponic type factory which uses water only without soil, in Singapore.